29. December 2014 | Von Benjamin Braun 

안녕 – Bye dear Korea

All exams are written, all presentations are conducted, last homework assignments are handed in. And grades are already coming soon. It is time to résumé the past four months, to résumé the exceptional situation “study abroad”.

안녕 – Bye dear Korea

The time in Korea is approaching its end and most of us are looking forward to finally return to our families and friends again soon. It has been a great time with lots of new impressions and experiences, that none of us would want to miss. To celebrate the ending of the past months we had a dinner party with two of our professors in a bar in the foreigners district “Itaewon”.

We drank, ate, listened to music, talked and had a great time. This was just the perfect graduation party with eventually all of the nine students united and went even better than most of us had expected – You know a party is fun when you have to change the location two times due to the bars closing time and everybody keeps enjoying. It was a great opportunity to recapitulate funny and unique moments and memories we had and also to create new ones right on the spot.

The first blog post from Korea this year was uploaded nearly three months ago. A lot has happened in the meantime, the list starts with company visits to Hyundai or various Media Companies, over to exploring Seoul and ends with a three day trip to beautiful Jeju-Island with Mike. Some students even use the time to visit other SEA countries like Japan or the Philippines. Even the weather changed a lot – from summer with sometimes around 30 degrees, over a colourful, dry autumn, up to a cold and not humid winter. Several times we had some snow and everyday around -6 degrees; sometimes even colder.

To sum it up: Seoul is an amazing city and we are glad we chose it to study at. It’s a city full of life and interesting things and places to discover. It had a reason to honour it as the “Design city”. There are a lot of interesting people to meet on the streets of Seoul, too. People are open to get in contact with you although the ambitious Koreans always have something to learn and something to do.

The time we spent in the school was neither too much nor too less, as well as the requirements of effort. The numerous company visits made studying more comfortable but also the time in university became nice because of friendly and helpful professors. The courses were just set well and the teaching material was interesting and appropriate. We would definitely say, that we really learnt this semester new, useful stuff – although all of us focused more on experiencing Korea, Koreans and Korean culture of course.

The professors are unique personalities who were very dedicated and understanding. We were glad to meet each of them. All in all it was a great combination of studying, getting to know the culture, trips, and leisure time. Everybody had great experiences and learnt something for ones lives for sure. Some of us even decided to stay a little longer and use the class-free time for more travelling or to get an even closer connection to the country. For the rest of us it’s time to get back home now.

Good Bye, Korea. Hope to see you again – soon. Maybe for the internship?

16. December 2014 | Von Johanna Schroeder 

Fashionistas, Art and Creativity

Extremely modern, perfectly styled, dip-dyed hair, brands, creative, fashion everywhere.
Where the f*** are we?!

Fashionistas, Art and Creativity

These were only a few of our impressions we had during our first day at Istituto Marangoni.

Istituto Marangoni is one of the leading international fashion schools with over 3000 students from 92 different countries from all over the world. It has schools in Milano, Paris, Shanghai and of course London, where we spend our semester abroad. It is located in Shoreditch, the heart of London’s artistic and creative scene. Sounds awesome? It is!

But at our first day we didn’t really know what to expect from our semester abroad at a fashion school like this and how it would influence us in the future. What would we exactly study? Only business or design? Anything combined with fashion maybe? Soon it became clear that all our subjects, for the designers and even for the media managers, are related to the fashion industry only. Suddenly we were no media students anymore, but fashion students instead. How did this happen? Seriously, we have no idea… But it’s great! There was not only the new city London to discover, but also a new perspective on our study itself. We needed to adapt ourselves to the new fashion topics as well as to our new environment with all those crazy fashionistas, designers, stylists and artists. We felt like studying in a living VOGUE magazine. Weird you think? It was.

But we got used to all this much faster than expected. Studying in a really small group of Macromedia students – yes, we are only nine – helped us as well as having inspiring professors, who are working directly in the luxury and fashion industry, which is why they could give us a very realistic insight into it. They also supported us with our first assignment, where we had to develop and present a marketing communications plan for a young fashion designer. You think that’s not a big deal? Well you’re wrong. It was quite challenging and took a lot more time and energy than expected but we feel it was worth it!

Now the first term is over, we can spend all our time on experiencing the world outside the university. And this world offers uncountable things to do and to see! First of all, Shoreditch, where Istituto Marangoni is located. Here you get the chance to visit galleries at every corner, see street artists at their work and join lots of different pop up events. Above all, at the weekend the area goes crazy! Everywhere you go there are markets, street food stands and live music is played. If you want to join a day drinking session, buy new furniture, eat thai food or just get inspired by all the handmade things, Shoreditch is the place to be!

Of course as fashion students we need to introduce you to the London world of fashion. Starting with vintage, you can get in several shops in Shoreditch, but also at street markets at places all around the city such as Notting Hill, Covent Garden, Camden Town or even Greenwich. But if you prefer high fashion, such as Chanel, Prada, Gucci, Céline, Valentino, D&G, Givenchy, Moschino, Bottega Veneta, etc (yes, we got way too deep into brands this term), you should visit Bond Street, Harrods, Selfridges, Liberty or Dover Street Market. If you just want to buy “normal” clothes, you can actually afford, this is also possible, e.g. on Oxford Street, but just to let you know – as we learned this new word – this type of clothing is called “Fast Fashion”.

But for now we are not interested in fashion anymore, because christmas conquers the city and we have time to get ready for the next term starting in the new year!

10. December 2014 | Von Christina Beckmann 

San Diego, an we stay longer?

It’s our second last week in university now and the final exams are going to be done soon. But for Christmas almost all of us have just one wish: Can we stay longer?

San Diego, an we stay longer?

In the last weeks everything went too quick and there are so many experiences and things left which have to be done in the last weeks. It is sad to know that all the experiences and the relaxed and laid-back all day life turns into memories soon and the amazing time will be over.

But instead of being so sad let’s come to the amazing California. Because California is so big, we needed much time (luckily we just had 2-3 classes per week) to travel through all big places of interest like Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Santa Babara, Highway 1, San Francisco, Yosemite, Las Vegas, Grand Canyon and all smaller National Parks. A few also flight to Hawaii or the other side of the states to New York City. California offers a bunch of contrasting nature which makes the state really fascinating. There are more than 3000 km  of wood and rocks in the Yosemite National Park and on the opposite a few miles away just desert. But mind, even in the middle of nowhere you can stuck in a traffic jam for hours.

But of course we all experienced a lot in San Diego itself like surfing, going to Taco Tuesday, watching the San Diego Chargers (Football) or Padres (Baseball), eating the best burger ever or joining a typical american party cancelled by the police. All in all I would say that the semester abroad in San Diego is the perfect mix between studying, traveling and fun at all. We’ve all met new friends, seen new places, had new challenges and experienced new things and also got new tattoos, too!

A couple of us will already go back to Germany before Christmas, others will stay longer in San Diego and a few are traveling around North and South America. We’ve clearly gotten used to the 5 month of sun in our face and the ocean next to our door, even it has gotten kind of „cold“ (20°C instead of 25°C ;)) in the last weeks. I think we all had and still have an unforgettable time here in San Diego.

8. December 2014 | Von Katrin Dusel 

Australia – our daily routine

After two months of living and studying at Jay Gatsby’s Home, Manly and the International College of Management started feeling like home.

Australia – our daily routine

At that point all the things, which were so exciting and awesome at the beginning, became to be our daily routine: waking up with shafts of sunlight in our faces, studying in English-classes with people from all over the world and thereby wearing business clothes, sharing rooms with persons who maybe had been foreigners two months ago, lying on the Manly-beach in our less free time or using the ship as the main public transport.

The studies turned to be much more ambitious than they had been at the beginning of our semester abroad. Basically, the study-system in Australia is a bit different to the system in Germany that we are used to. Here, at ICMS, we do not have to write just a final exam at the end of the term, we rather have to write essays or create presentations for nearly every single week in different subjects. By combining all these single certificates of performance plus the final exam at the end, it can be calculated the final grade. As a result, we had lots of things to do during the week.

In spite of everything, we tried to use our long weekends (which lasted at least from Friday to Sunday) as eventful as possible. Separated in different smaller groups, we explored the east coast of Australia.

Because of the less time we had during the weekend, lots of groups decided to focus on Sydney and its environment. Obviously, there are many things to see: Hunter Valley, Blue Mountains, Taronga Zoo or Sea Life Manly – for naming just four attractions. Others wanted to have more action whereas they did Bridge Climbing on Sydney Harbour Bridge, Sky Diving, Cage Diving or Whale Watching with a speedboat.

But besides the attractions that Manly and Sydney had to offer, there were many other cities to see.

Melbourne was just one and a half hours by plane away from Sydney and allured with its beautiful parks and (of course) sights like the Great Ocean Road or the Formula One route Albert Circuit Park.

Also the trips to famous surf-spots like Spot X or Bryon Bay were completely booked up. Primarily, Byron Bay is really recommendable. The small village near Brisbane is the most alternative part of the east coast. People there are living like they did 200 years ago in original Australia without any western influences: wearing colourful clothes with crazy samples, having flowers in their hair and dancing on the streets to self-made reggae-music. There is not a single in Byron Bay, because it is most visited by backpackers and surfers from all around the world, who are used to sleep in hostels.

Gradually, the summer arrived in Sydney and it became warmer and warmer. Although the temperature outside turned to over thirty-two degrees, the first advent calendars were located in the supermarkets. The imagination that some of us would celebrate Christmas sitting under the sun instead of sitting under a Christmas tree was a really strange feeling. Because of all the (Christmas-) shopping, the first of us get in trouble with their luggage and had to send packages back home to Germany.

Because of all the single activities, time was running so fast. The final presentations and exams were already within eyeshot and we besides planning our next trips to Cairns, the Golden Coast, Brisbane, New Zealand or any places, we had to focus more on studying for university.

Just three more days and we will be off – visiting the east coast and living the Australian lifestyle!